1986), observed by Anna and Caleb in beautiful spare prose. There are, too, few wasted
words in Isaac Campion (1986), Janni Howker’s raw memory of an old man’s early life in
the north of England. Raw in a different way is Christa Laird’s Shadow of the Wall
(1989), based on the last few months of Dr Janus Korczak in the Warsaw Ghetto, a quite
outstanding recreation of courage and inspiration. Geraldine McCaughrean went right
back to the Mystery plays for a humorous story of Gabriel in A Little Lower Than the
Angels (1987).
Three very different books represent the 1990s. Michael Morpurgo’s Waiting for Anya
(1990), in which Jo’s village conspires to save the Jewish children hidden in the hills is
an exciting rounded story which shows the maturing of his writing. Judith O’Neill also
fulfilled early promise in So far from Skye (1992), a deeply satisfying novel of emigration
to Australia in the nineteenth century. Katherine Paterson goes back to the Industrial
Revolution in Massachusetts in her portrayal of a girl’s fight for better conditions in
Lyddie (1991).
There were few books in the 1980s about medieval times, and a burgeoning in the
number of books about twentieth-century history, particularly about the Second World
War. With this shift there has also been a change from the observation of great political
events to a concentration on the life of the ordinary family, on how they lived and how
the great events touched their lives.
Although there has been a distinct falling off in the number of historical stories
published since the 1980s, it is encouraging to note that Margery Fisher in her journal
Growing Point, reviewed over twenty historical novels for children in 1991. It is to be hoped
that the books mentioned in this essay, which are evidence of the depth and breadth of
the genre, will provide a rich heritage, a way of illuminating the past for future
generations.
ReferencesHollindale, P. (1977) ‘World enough and time: the work of Mollie Hunter’, Children’s Literature in
Education 8, 3:109–119.
Horowitz, C. (1969) ‘Dimensions in time: a critical view of historical fiction for children’, in Field,
E.W. (ed.) Horn Book Reflections, Boston: Horn Book.
Kirkpatrick, D.L. (ed.) (1978) Twentieth Century Children’s Writers, New York: St Martin’s Press.
Meek, M. (1980) ‘The fortunes of Mantlemass’, The Times Literary Supplement 18 July: 805.
Sutcliff, R. (1983), Bonnie Dundee, London: Bodley Head.
Further ReadingButts, D. (1977) Good Writers for Young Readers, London: Hart-Davis.
Egoff, S., Stubbs, G.T. and Ashley, L.F. (eds) (1969) Only Connect: Readings on Children’s
Literature, Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Fisher, J. (1994) An Index of Historical Fiction for Children and Young People, Aldershot: Scolar
Press.
Meek, M., Warlow, A. and Barton, G. (eds) (1967) The Cool Web; the Pattern of Children’s Reading,
London: Bodley Head.
372 HISTORICAL FICTION